Tenth Anniversary Gift; Spellcrafting?

emilyhyoyeon

I'd be totally down for spellcrafting. The Q1 crates next year are called Mages Guild, and if we end up going to Skingrad, it kinda ties together how spellcrafting was almost exclusively tied to the Mages Guild in Oblivion (Cyrodiil/Skingrad)--that's my reach.

kyatos_binarini

Just remember what spell crafting has done to TES3 and TES4. Personally I would prefer system without classes when every one can access every skill line or pick any 3 class skill lines.

SilverBride

Spellcrafting feels like micromanaging to me and I hate that.

SpacemanSpiff1

it's obviously going to be spellcrafting.

Enemy-of-Coldharbour

Double furnishing slots and a furnishings bag!

KlauthWarthog

Pretty sure the overabundance of pointless sets highlights what Spellcrafting would end up looking like...
... also pretty sure Mythics have already overtaken it as the intended system for individual character tweaking.

Tyrant_Tim

emilyhyoyeon wrote: »

I'd be totally down for spellcrafting. The Q1 crates next year are called Mages Guild, and if we end up going to Skingrad, it kinda ties together how spellcrafting was almost exclusively tied to the Mages Guild in Oblivion (Cyrodiil/Skingrad)--that's my reach.

I know, those crates have me wondering… lol

Four_Fingers

I wanted Jewlery crafting, got it but it was slow to level and expensive to craft.
Would like spell crafting but am afraid ZOS will make us jump through hoops to use it and will be expensive is well.
Please prove me wrong ZOS.

Trejgon

the one thing from that oldie quakecon video that makes me like and want at least some of that system is that they had a number of conjuration spells there that eso doesn't normally have

Tyrant_Tim

Trejgon wrote: »

the one thing from that oldie quakecon video that makes me like and want at least some of that system is that they had a number of conjuration spells there that eso doesn't normally have

Yup, I normally build into Conjuration in TES games and Sorcerer just doesn’t work. There’s no uniqueness between summoner builds, it’s always the Scamp and the Flappy bird.

Jammy420

I honestly would prefer a remake of the vanilla zones to be up to snuff for todays standards. They are so glaringly aged at this point.

Trejgon

Tyrant_Tim wrote: »

Trejgon wrote: »

the one thing from that oldie quakecon video that makes me like and want at least some of that system is that they had a number of conjuration spells there that eso doesn't normally have

Yup, I normally build into Conjuration in TES games and Sorcerer just doesn’t work. There’s no uniqueness between summoner builds, it’s always the Scamp and the Flappy bird.

I run clanfear I am petty like that because I really dislike the scamp.

As for floppy, I had a period when I liked it, but it tends to like to stick tad too close to me, obscuring bit chunks of screen often unless I zoom out by alot.

And the, the slot requirement to run those pet builds on sorc are really limiting on slots, and I personally find daedric prey unsatisfying to use - on it's own it only deals damage after full timer passes, and if you recast it too early you lose on that damage (not to mention it is magic damage so doesn't get boosted by sorc passives), if you recast it too late, then you lose on pet efficiency....

I had a complete break from pets on my sorc for a decent while because pet annoyed me with how close it likes to stick (had to be on pretty much full zoom out for it to be workable) and clanfear has tendency to die alot to any more serious content. Currently went back to running solo clanfear just to have something different to what I was running (I like to swap some bits around from time to time)

Paralyse

Spellcrafting was actually scheduled to be implemented in alpha, but would have proved nearly impossible to balance, and the system was also overly complex and also heavily time-gated (you had to complete Mages Guild quests, THEN unlock a bunch of other quests, among other things.)

The complexity alone would have done it in, even if it hadn't been massively impractical. It would not have tested well. Players interested in ESO wanted a more traditional MMO experience: your character should automatically gain in power for your chosen play style with new each level-up. This is why skill line ranks and levels were put into the game; the content intended for Spellcrafting was split between class skills, weapon skills, and the new Enchanting profession (which was itself targeted by later testers as a system that was unrewarding, excessively time-consuming, difficult to level, and difficult to use.)

Imagine having to do quests to unlock, say, a basic Fireball spell, then do more quests to learn better versions of it, then have its damage dependent on the quality of tablet you wrote it on, etc, then rinse and repeat for different Fire-type spells (self-cast, AoE, channeled, summons, DoT, fast-but-cheap, expensive-but-powerful, item-modifying spells such as Flame Damage on a weapon, e.g.) All of this would have some RNG thrown in, in terms of "quality", "potency", etc. that were later borrowed for Enchanting.

The idea of using Skyrim-style "constellations" where any character could learn spells from any of the Magic schools in the ES universe, such as Conjuration, Restoration, etc. was not seen as being practical in an MMO. The devs wanted to avoid a "bad build" situation where allowing players that much freedom to customize their character led to brokenly OP builds, builds that couldn't kill anything at all, and everything in between, making it nearly impossible to balance PvE or PvP encounters. Things that work okay in a single-player RPG or cRPG were found to be utterly impractical within the framework of a MMO.

Additionally, early marketing research revealed that players who had shown interest in an ES MMO wanted combat similar to previous single player Elder Scrolls games. Contemporary MMO's such as World of Warcraft featured combat that was mostly based on skills/spells/abilities, and very little on actual weapon attacks or active blocking, dodging, or parrying, all of which were passive or automatic in WoW. Such systems would have not been possible to integrate with traditional ES combat, nor would they have been easily portable for future Console release development, which was already in the works as far back as late 2013.

All of that being said, Spellcrafting would not be remotely easy to implement in current ESO. It would basically require every single player in the game to relearn every spell and ability from scratch, while losing out on all of their progress so far on each of those skill and spell lines. It would require the removal of Enchanting, along with every Enchanting-related item in the game, and every existing enchant on every piece of gear in ESO would have to be altered to remove any enchants so that their effects could be replaced by Spellcrafting spells. To say that it would completely and utterly break the game is not hyperbole; it would also increase the complexity factor of the game by a large amount, which would quickly alienate more casual players and those players who do not have time to run hundreds of quests to unlock spells and their variations, even before taking RNG into account. It would also completely break PvE and PvP combat, requiring a massive systems overhaul in every area.

But the ultimate reason that Spellcrafting is not practical as a new feature is that it would not be likely to add anything new to the game at a level sufficient to justify any of the above massive structural changes. Most of the things that could be done with Spellcrafting as originally intended would be vastly easier to realize as new spell or skill lines, which is how they were put into the game originally; this would require some overhaul of the CP system, but that would be much more manageable.

Tyrant_Tim

@Paralyse, do you have footage of the system from Beta? Because it is is the first time I’m hearing of it being available in game.

About your other statements, all you’ve done is point out the difficulty in bringing the system to the game, something that was already thought out as early as 2014, referencing Nick Konkle’s statement about a Spellcrafting within “bounds.”

Then pointed to different areas of the game and made the assumption that they would need to go. There is no reason to why Enchanting would need to be removed, you didn’t clarify once why you believed it to be the case. Enchanting was a stand-alone feature in Skyrim, as it would be continue to be in ESO.

Ultimately revealing a fear that the system wouldn’t impact the game in a significant way. How could these spells not change the dynamic of the game but in your earlier statement “To say that it would completely and utterly break the game is not hyperbole…” So which is it?

Now, none of us know how the system would be implemented, but it’s safe to assume any features within the game would not meet the chopping block due to an addition.

You also say that Spellcrafting would alienate new players; why? Because they would need to complete the Mage’s Guild? You can do that in less than 4 hours in-game.

Did Oakensoul alienate new players? You had to level an entire skill line with Antiquities, then farm the lead, yet the vast majority of players see that ring as the best thing to happen.

Paralyse

Updated my comment to clarify confusing language regarding timing and the difference between conceptual and playable implementation.

My point here is that spellcrafting would be very difficult to implement NOW with modern ESO systems in 2023.

It would, in fact, be a game-breaker -- it would require a complete overhaul of nearly every in-game system, just to implement functionality that already exists between weapon skills, class skills, and enchanting. Honestly, i'm not even sure if could be implemented without a complete player reset ("wipe" or "purge.")

The functionality currently done by Enchanting in ESO was originally part of Spellcrafting from what I understand. Adding spellcrafting would make Enchanting redundant, if that is the case.

Ultimately, creating a system that would be engaging enough to satisfy hardcore ESO players, while also being approachable and friendly enough to be quickly mastered by new players with no previous ES or ESO experience, would likely prove to be cost-prohibitive and time-prohibitive in a game which is already 10 years old. I simply cannot see ZOS investing those resources to make such a system viable in ESO these days - it's not impossible, but I consider it extremely unlikely.

Paralyse

Also, in order for Spellcrafting to have any value to players, much of the functionality implemented in the form of things such as Destruction and Restoration staff skill lines, just to use one example, as well as many of the skill lines for each individual class, would have to be heavily reworked, as they would no longer be needed since that functionality would be devolved to the Spellcrafting system.

My understanding of Spellcrafting is that it allowed players to take a base spell and create different variations of that spell (AoE, permanent, ultimate, etc.) So you could have a base Fire school of Destruction Magic, and then have different types of Fire magic, which would be of different potency based on the quality of tablet used, as well as optional effects that had rarity levels in and of themselves.


My understanding is that Spellcrafting was going to work something like this:
- Take a base spell such as, say, a healing spell
- Spellcrafting allows you to learn and craft an AoE version, a summoning version, an Ultimate version, a self-applied or permanent version (for self or items), or a cost-reduced version, and those versions can have different potencies and optional effects based on quality of materials used and how much you have unlocked in your Spellcrafting Spellbook by doing Ancient Portal quests or something along those lines

So you could have an AoE heal, an Ultimate heal, a cheaper version of a Heal, a Healing Atronach (for lack of a better word) or a spell that converts healing into a self-applied permanent aura (e.g. HP recovery or damage reduction shield) or permanent item modification (i.e. an enchant such as spellpower increase or trait such as Powered)

What would such a system add to ESO that was either not already part of an existing skill or spell, a morph, or couldn't be added via a new skill or spell/new line?


To try to paraphrase that into a bit simpler terms, there would be no reason to have Spellcrafting unless it allowed you to have skills or spells (or different versions of those spells) that were not already part of ESO; and in that case, why bother with Spellcrafting when it is easier and far more practical to simply add those features as new skill lines, or morphs of existing skills, just like they did with Scrying and Excavation, or Legerdemain, or the Thieves Guild and DB skill lines?

LonePirate

People really need to use their imaginations here. What is something that nobody has asked for as a way to celebrate 10 glorious years? That's what ZOS will deliver. Much like a balanced PVP system, Spellcrafting is something many players have wanted and as such those wishes will never be granted.

Uvi_AUT

You really think they can pull off something like spellcrafting?
Look at Psijic Order. Have you ever used any of the Skills there besides Channeled Acceleration and maybe the Ultimate as a Barbuffer?
They introduced it, made it bad and never ever touched it again.

Tyrant_Tim

Uvi_AUT wrote: »

You really think they can pull off something like spellcrafting?
Look at Psijic Order. Have you ever used any of the Skills there besides Channeled Acceleration and maybe the Ultimate as a Barbuffer?
They introduced it, made it bad and never ever touched it again.

I would rather the feature made, even if it resulted in 1/5 spells seeing any playtime.

Because that would still result in more build diversity than what we have now, and not every spell made has to have relevance to combat.

The Illusion school of magic is host to spells like Camouflage or Invisibility that could assist with Thieves Guild and Dark Brotherhood, there would be spells that reduce fall damage, detection radius, spells that light up the room, spells to see enemies through walls like the Vampire ultimate, and more.

Spellcrafting isn’t just about parsing higher. It’s about making the game a much more enjoyable one to play, with more options, and the artistic freedom to play your character how YOU want, completely in line with ZOS’ vision.

LunaFlora

Uvi_AUT wrote: »

You really think they can pull off something like spellcrafting?
Look at Psijic Order. Have you ever used any of the Skills there besides Channeled Acceleration and maybe the Ultimate as a Barbuffer?
They introduced it, made it bad and never ever touched it again.

yea i have used time stop a lot when healing. and i use symbiosis occasionally when playing solo or not in combat because it's a fun ability.

Tyrant_Tim

LunaFlora wrote: »

Uvi_AUT wrote: »

You really think they can pull off something like spellcrafting?
Look at Psijic Order. Have you ever used any of the Skills there besides Channeled Acceleration and maybe the Ultimate as a Barbuffer?
They introduced it, made it bad and never ever touched it again.

yea i have used time stop a lot when healing. and i use symbiosis occasionally when playing solo or not in combat because it's a fun ability.

Right, Time Stop has a morph that provides Heal Negation which is huge in shutting down ball groups in Cyrodiil, and Crushing Weapon is still a great tool when playing Ranged PvP builds.

spartaxoxo

Tyrant_Tim wrote: »

Spellcrafting isn’t just about parsing higher. It’s about making the game a much more enjoyable one to play, with more options, and the artistic freedom to play your character how YOU want, completely in line with ZOS’ vision.

This is the route I think it would go, and why I think people might find it a bit underwhelming. I don't think they'd make it so that you'd need to use it to parse higher by slotting a spellcrafted skill. Perhaps like 1-2 skills like that, but they aren't going to implement anything that basically rewrites the entire game.

They'd probably just let you add a 3rd morph to existing skills and then make that morph more focused on utility, so as not to undermine the class system. Like instead of Magelight revealing enemies, now it illuminates traps and is super bright so it can be used as a flashlight or whatever.

Tyrant_Tim

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Tyrant_Tim wrote: »

Spellcrafting isn’t just about parsing higher. It’s about making the game a much more enjoyable one to play, with more options, and the artistic freedom to play your character how YOU want, completely in line with ZOS’ vision.

This is the route I think it would go, and why I think people might find it a bit underwhelming. I don't think they'd make it so that you'd need to use it to parse higher by slotting a spellcrafted skill. Perhaps like 1-2 skills like that, but they aren't going to implement anything that basically rewrites the entire game.

They'd probably just let you add a 3rd morph to existing skills and then make that morph more focused on utility, so as not to undermine the class system. Like instead of Magelight revealing enemies, now it illuminates traps and is super bright so it can be used as a flashlight or whatever.

Even that would be better than nothing.

Currently it’s been since Summerset that we’ve had any new skills to liven up our old characters.

Jaimeh

ESO_player123 wrote: »

I personally would not want spellcrafting. With all the constant tweaks and changes we are having now adding another layer to fiddle with does not sound enticing.

This^ Imagine the mess with balance if they introduced spellcrafting (and I think that if they ever did it, it would be much more restrictive and standardized than what people imagine).

I think new PvP content and/or a massive performance update would be a nice anniversary announcement. When ESO first came out PvP was lauded as its most exciting feature, and it was heavily promoted, but since then, with all the balance and performance issues, PvP is just a shadow of its former self as far as activities go, and almost completely overlooked by the devs for years now. I think a PvP related announcement will bring a lot of players back to the game.

Ragnarok0130

Tyrant_Tim wrote: »

@WrathOfInnos, yeah I was genuinely surprised by the negativity. I get that good faith is at an all-time-low for the community vs ZOS, but I have faith they could pull this off, they’ve shown they can balance with a chisel this year.

ZoS does not balance with a chisel, they balance with a wrecking ball and it is foolish to think that ZoS would ever change in that respect. The concept of spell crafting is not feasible or it would already be in the game, not to mention ZoS currently has huge challenges balancing the game as it stands now without adding an arguably unbalanceable system like spell crafting into the equation.

Regarding “surviving” hybridization, that system hasn’t even been completed yet so how can we expect ZoS to do a good let alone complete job adding spell crafting? The community shouldn’t and likely can’t survive more huge game upheavals on the level of U35 and those would inevitably come if spell crafting was ramrodded into ESO.

Tyrant_Tim

Ragnarok0130 wrote: »

Tyrant_Tim wrote: »

@WrathOfInnos, yeah I was genuinely surprised by the negativity. I get that good faith is at an all-time-low for the community vs ZOS, but I have faith they could pull this off, they’ve shown they can balance with a chisel this year.

ZoS does not balance with a chisel, they balance with a wrecking ball and it is foolish to think that ZoS would ever change in that respect. The concept of spell crafting is not feasible or it would already be in the game, not to mention ZoS currently has huge challenges balancing the game as it stands now without adding an arguably unbalanceable system like spell crafting into the equation.

Regarding “surviving” hybridization, that system hasn’t even been completed yet so how can we expect ZoS to do a good let alone complete job adding spell crafting? The community shouldn’t and likely can’t survive more huge game upheavals on the level of U35 and those would inevitably come if spell crafting was ramrodded into ESO.

What would you call this past year, if not balancing with a chisel? We’ve received zero upheavals of the meta in almost two years. Prior to Update 35, combat balance was in constant fluctuation, every PTS cycle for 2023, I’ve actually been annoyed with how little things have been tweaked.

We’ve survived One Tamriel, reworks of half of our skills for Stamina builds, sweeping metas, and I repeat, Hybridization.

All we need is an update to Critical Chance and Potions, and the QoL combining of skills that mean the same thing, ie; Brutality and Sorcery. These are not going to break the game.

You also say, how can we expect a good/complete job… would you consider any of the other skill lines that have been released to be incomplete? Outside of a Camo Hunter exploit, I can’t recall any problems with them, and each ability has its own unique purpose.

Ultimately, I would suggest having more of an open mind, because change can be good, not scary. Especially when we’ve been using the same skills since Summerset.

ArchMikem

Unfortunately no, definitely no. Spellcrafting is much too large of a System for it to be just a gift. It needs to be monetized somehow and that means lumping it in with a yearly Chapter, or some other way.

Tyrant_Tim

ArchMikem wrote: »

Unfortunately no, definitely no. Spellcrafting is much too large of a System for it to be just a gift. It needs to be monetized somehow and that means lumping it in with a yearly Chapter, or some other way.

If it’s bound to a chapter, and offers an advantage, it would be labeled pay-to-win.

Spellcrafting would be no different in scale than One Tamriel, after ten years, we need an update of that size to attract new players.

Erickson9610

I'd expect Spellcrafting to be pay-to-win. After all, certain skill lines and armor sets are locked behind Chapters/DLCs (like the Psijic Order and Jewelry Crafting behind the Summerset DLC, or Antiquities/Mythics behind the Greymoor Chapter). There is nothing wrong with that — we want ESO to continue to be financially supported.

Expecting Spellcrafting to be an "easy implementation" or for it to be given away as a base game "gift" would be a disservice to the time and effort that goes into analyzing, designing, and implementing these systems.

merpins

I feel like the vocal minority of ESO players like to point out the flaws in every suggestion and argue against everything sans one or two issues. I get it.

Spellcrafting would be fun. I'd prefer skillcrafting instead, since that removes the need for everything to be spells, and allows it to be whatever the Devs think up. But regardless, it would be fun.

That's all I want really. To have fun. ESO hasn't been that fun for me in a while. Arcanist was pretty fun, but more reasons to keep playing classes I already have would be welcome, and spellcrafting would do that.